info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (09/01/84)
From: John Clark <clark@rand-unix> I had the opportunity yesterday to attend a demo of a new assembler for the Macintosh, "MacAsm," by Mainstay Software of Agoura, CA. I was unable to do any hands-on testing, or to ask very many questions. However, what I saw was enough to whet my appetite--even though I don't consider myself an assembly hacker. MacAsm appears to be a memory-resident interactive programming environment, in which editing, assembling, and testing can be done--in the usual repetitive cycle--without exiting the environment. The editor looks nice; it is screen-oriented and keyboard- and/or keypad- (not mouse-) driven. The person giving the demo--an accomplished user, to be sure--did things faster and with more apparent ease than I've seen anybody do with a mouse-driven editor. MacAsm evidently supports all the right stuff: macros, conditional assembly, segments, lots of directives, debuggers, etc, etc. Included with MacAsm is a resource compiler; altogether, you get a complete standalone environment for doing program development on a single Macintosh. Of course, programs created by MacAsm will work on any Mac, without need of special runtime support. MacAsm is expected to be released around mid-September; the introductory price is supposed to be $100. It looks like an interesting alternative to Apple's MacAssembler. Mainstay Software is run by an amiable fellow named Tom Nalevanka. Mainstay's address and phone are 28611 Canwood St., Agoura, CA 91301, 818/991-6540. The usual disclaimers apply: I have no connection with Mainstay Software; the above represents my perceptions of MacAsm, and is a complete dump of what I know--if you want to know more, you'll have to contact Mainstay. --John Clark clark@rand-unix